[cyarnell]

Just joined forum and Wife and I made first purchases rice/beans/ oats, cornmeal, flour etc. i went and bought 10 5 gal buckets from Home Depot. most of stuff just left in bag and put in buckets with tops on. As for the rice, bag was to big so poured rice in bucket put top on it. Now i am reading about "food quality buckets, moisture fears etc" is there something I should be doing to insure food stays dry/fresh free from spoil?? also thinking of investing in year worth of freeze dried products any particular brands stand out?? as for water have in
ground swimming pool (going to purchase water purifier what kind?? and have 5/6 water bottles from water dispenser. So any insights/guidance would be greatly appreciated

 

[rickkyw1720pf]

Surest way to be safe is to use Mylar bags

Amazon.com: 5 gal mylar bags

 

[inceptor]

You can use those buckets but the self life would not be very long. I would store then in mylar bags with o2 absorbers inside the buckets you have. This will make the self life a whole lot longer. I have heard of rice storing for 25 years.

I found this video short but useful.

Mylar bags and o2 absorbers can be found on amazon and ebay at very reasonable prices.

YouTube has some real useful video's on food storage.

 

[inceptor]

And, oh yeah, welcome to the forum from Texas.

 

[ScPrep]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't salt also help with keeping the rice dry? and it would also add some flavor while your at it .

 

[tango]

Welcome from Florida
There is a world of info here, take notes.

 

[indie]

It depends on what your goals are. If you want a year's worth of food that you will be rotating through, no special storage is needed. Look at the expiration dates on most of your dry goods and you'll see that they already last 1-2 years on their own, as they are packaged. As long as you rotate through and use up the oldest first, you can go indefinitely with a year's surplus.

Mylar + O2 absorbers are for long term storage. If your goal is to have a supply you can set and forget (for a time, anyway), go with this option. The nice thing about using mylar is that you don't have to worry about food grade buckets since the food never touches the plastic. Buckets are porous so they will still let in air and degrade the quality of your food over time.

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Inor]

Welcome from Minnesota.

There is a big debate with a lot of preppers about whether to use buckets that are designed specifically for food or if the Home Depot buckets are good enough. We went with the buckets made from the "special" food safe plastic. But the reason wasn't so much because of the buckets. Rather we wanted the gamma seal lids and at the time, the place we got the lids would only sell them if we bought the buckets too.

GAMMA SEALS AS LOW AS $3.99 EACH

They were not cheap, but they work really well. As mentioned in another post, we do line the buckets with mylar bags and add one or two oxygen absorbers (depending on the size of the o2 absorbers). If using the mylar bags, I would not worry so much about making sure the buckets are made of the "special" food safe plastic. We also found these really neat pills that change color when exposed to oxygen. They are normally blue but turn red when exposed to oxygen. We add those also so we can judge whether the oxygen absorbers are doing their job.

The other thing I bought was a cheap 12 oz dead blow mallet. That works really well for making sure the gamma lids are good and tight and also for later opening the buckets.

Note: Do not use the oxygen absorbers with salt or sugar. It makes them both turn hard as a brick and you will need a hammer to later break them back into powder.

 

[rickkyw1720pf]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't salt also help with keeping the rice dry? and it would also add some flavor while your at it .

Actually rice is a drying agent in itself in that it has thousand of tiny pores. One of the ways to get water out of a cell phone if it falls in water is to put it in rice. So the same properties that rice has that allows it to absorb water allows it to absorb odors, So even though it may be safe to eat after storing it in just a plastic 5 gal pail it may taste like that pale.
mylar bags and an oxygen absorber can bring the O2 level down to .01 percent, all insects and their eggs will die out within a week if the 02 level is below .3 percent. An 02 absorber will bring the 02 level down much lower then a vacuum sealer can.

 

[inceptor]

.

Note: Do not use the oxygen absorbers with salt or sugar. It makes them both turn hard as a brick and you will need a hammer to later break them back into powder.

Thanks Inor, I didn't know that. My plan for those is my vacuum sealer but I could have been tempted to add an o2 absorber. I'm just now getting into long term bulk myself.

 

[Inor]

Thanks Inor, I didn't know that. My plan for those is my vacuum sealer but I could have been tempted to add an o2 absorber. I'm just now getting into long term bulk myself.

We still have not figured out how to keep brown sugar from getting hard. Mrs Inor bought about 10 bags of it a year or two ago when they were having a big sale. Now, she can either beat the bags with a hammer for 10 minutes when she wants to make cookies, or I can strap one to my chest for body armor.

 

[inceptor]

We still have not figured out how to keep brown sugar from getting hard. Mrs Inor bought about 10 bags of it a year or two ago when they were having a big sale. Now, she can either beat the bags with a hammer for 10 minutes when she wants to make cookies, or I can strap one to my chest for body armor.

Cheap body armor, I like that. ::clapping::

 

[PrepConsultant]

Using amylar bag with o2 absorber is the way to go. I rotate mine as well. A lot of people just stick them in the garage or whatever and let em sit. I prefer to rotate them so they are not quite so old when it comes time to use them..

I hear guys say that they don't eat the stuff and only use it in emergencies. Why oin the hell store something you don't eat normally? It makes a bad situation even worse... Just my opinion..

 

[inceptor]

We still have not figured out how to keep brown sugar from getting hard. Mrs Inor bought about 10 bags of it a year or two ago when they were having a big sale. Now, she can either beat the bags with a hammer for 10 minutes when she wants to make cookies, or I can strap one to my chest for body armor.

I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination but my 1st thought was an apple. So I did a search and found this.

Pantry Problem Solving: 5 Ways To Keep Brown Sugar Soft | The Kitchn

Sounds interesting. I may try the marshmallow with sugar.

 

[Inor]

I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination but my 1st thought was an apple. So I did a search and found this.

Pantry Problem Solving: 5 Ways To Keep Brown Sugar Soft | The Kitchn

Sounds interesting. I may try the marshmallow with sugar.

Thanks!

 

[inceptor]

Thanks!

Let me know if it works.

 

[Rigged for Quiet]

We still have not figured out how to keep brown sugar from getting hard. Mrs Inor bought about 10 bags of it a year or two ago when they were having a big sale. Now, she can either beat the bags with a hammer for 10 minutes when she wants to make cookies, or I can strap one to my chest for body armor.

Like wearing it on your chest is gonna keep Mrs Inor from pounding it with a hammer!

 

[Inor]

Like wearing it on your chest is gonna keep Mrs Inor from pounding it with a hammer!

Trust me on this. If Mrs Inor is coming after me with a hammer, she is not aiming for my chest no matter what I have on it!

 

[tirednurse]

We still have not figured out how to keep brown sugar from getting hard. Mrs Inor bought about 10 bags of it a year or two ago when they were having a big sale. Now, she can either beat the bags with a hammer for 10 minutes when she wants to make cookies, or I can strap one to my chest for body armor.

I put my brown sugar into quart jars and seal with my food saver. It has never gotten hard and stays light and fluffy. I like the quart size because it seems like it is just the right amount for things like double batches of cookies and stuff like that.

 

[PaulS]

Just remember that oxygen and moisture are the enemy of food storage. You want to drop oxygen to less than 5% and moisture to as close to zero as yo can get. Vacuum packaging works well for both but you can also use desiccant and oxygen absorbers too.